2015 Was The Year of Telemedicine. Why 2016 Will be Even Bigger

2015 was a big year in telemedicine. And our team at eVisit felt that momentum.

Over the past year, our small telemedicine software company grew to a thriving business that now serves providers from 38 medical specialties at a national-level. We’ve guided many practices and their providers through our comprehensive launch process and helped them build a telemedicine program to better serve their patients’ needs. Many providers and their patients have even reached out to tell us how much they love eVisit and our amazing customer success team.

“From our first conversation with eVisit, I’ve felt like they care about our practice and our ability to provide the best in patient care. Their entire team, including customer care, IT support and logistics, has done a fantastic job of getting us where we need to be.”

-Dr. Bill Bergman of Bill Bergman, M.D. and Associates

As CEO and co-founder of eVisit, hearing this feedback from our customers is incredibly validating and exciting. It reaffirms the importance and impact of our mission to build physician-first tools that improve healthcare delivery for providers and patients by bridging the gap between technology and healthcare.

Our team set out to create a telemedicine software solution that was simple, engaging, and intuitive. A solution that took the traditional benefits of telemedicine – like making patient care more accessible – and embedded them into a software platform built with healthcare providers’ workflows in mind for a better provider experience.

"In these times of flux in the medical world, eVisit gives us a platform to practice medicine the way we want to practice.” – Dr. Janice Knox, The Knox Group

We wanted to build a telemedicine solution that was as intuitive and sleek as the top technology apps and tools that all of us, in and outside the medical field, use everyday. We envisioned a tool that physicians would love, because it helped them satisfy patient needs and meaningfully impact practice revenue.

Over the course of 2015, our team has seen that vision come true. Or rather, we’ve made it come true. Along with the valuable feedback of our customers, we’ve built the most user-friendly, well-designed telemedicine platform on the market, as evidenced by the response of healthcare providers and patients alike.

And beyond just the efforts of our company, eVisit has taken off thanks to some huge steps forward in telemedicine in 2015.

In 2015, state lawmakers introduced over 200 bills about telemedicine. Much of the legislation focused on standardizing regulations around telemedicine (a relatively new endeavor), or mandating equal reimbursement for telemedicine services as compared to in-person medical services. Others focused on expanding Medicare’s coverage of telemedicine, or giving veterans better access to remote care.

Passing new legislation is never easy, and the fact that we saw so many new telemedicine parity laws pass in 2015 is just one sign of many that the demand for telemedicine is growing exponentially.

The pressure is on. Our bloated healthcare budget needs to become more efficient, and more effective. Patients need better access to care. Doctors need better tools to maintain their practices and cope with increasing administrative burden.

Over the past year, many identified telemedicine as an integral piece of the answer to these various problems, and we couldn’t agree more.

As for 2016, the momentum for telemedicine shows no signs of slowing. With the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact now in effect, cross-state licensing will become less of a barrier to practicing telemedicine.

Private payers are likely to provide more comprehensive coverage for telemedicine services, as 38 states have now either proposed or enacted telehealth parity laws and the big carriers, like UnitedHealthcare, have started offering telemedicine visits as a way to cut down on costs.

And with our eVisit team at 21 strong, we’re resolved to make 2016 an even bigger year for #physicianfirst telemedicine.